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Tuesday, May 27, 2014

I have a son and a daughter, pre-teens, and they both love things
like Star Wars and Doctor Who, playing video games, dressing up as
superheroes and running around with toy Styrofoam Thor swords. They love
comics and anime and Legos.

My daughter is drawn to strong female characters. Black Widow is her
favorite Avenger. I try to find stories that have strong female
characters for my daughter, because it’s not hard to find strong male
characters written, but sometimes harder to find the girls. And while my
daughter loves both, she relates to the girls.

I started watching an anime last week—and I’m not going to name it,
because I don’t feel like getting into an argument about how
and why these characters acted the way they did, and how it might have
been rational or logical in some ways. It started out great. It was
intriguing, the animation was gorgeous, and it seemed to have strong
characters of both genders. At first. By the time I hit the second arc
of the story, I felt like everything I had come to know about these
characters was sucked out or flattened. Boy became the stereotypical
hero off to save the damsel—and let me say, I don’t mind damsel in
distress stories. They can be written well. Not all girls want to be the
hero—some girls dream about a knight in shining armor coming to sweep
them off their feet. But some girls want to be heroes. Some
girls need to be heroes. Some girls want to see the heroes they can
relate to. And when the writers take a girl who was shown—at first—as a
strong, capable character and slowly tone that down and then flat-out
rip the heroic rug right out from under her, it disappoints me at
first—and then just makes me mad. Why would you do that to your
character—just so the guy can become a white knight to a girl who shouldn't have needed it?
There was a line this female character said when she was basically
being tortured that made me so, so mad, and I can’t say what it was
without giving the anime name, but let me just say: it was not cool,
because it made the girl’s pain all about the guy. It was not only an
injustice to the girl, but also an injustice to the characterization of
the guy, who had once had confidence that the girl could protect herself
pretty darn well and that just…vanished. It was like watching Body
Snatched versions of these characters.

I’m not saying the guy can’t rescue the girl. I’m not saying the girl
can’t rescue the guy. I love a good story that has mutual rescuing
where characters of both genders get to be the heroes. I love when the
girl is able to escape on her own. I love it when the guy comes to help
her or save her. I love when the girl gets to save the guy. As long as it is well-written and in character. Look at Disney’s Tangled. Eugene and Rapunzel saved each other back and forth through that movie. Look at Frozen. Anna
and Kristoff took turns saving each other and at the end, Anna gets to
save herself, which is the best thing ever—but she wouldn't have gotten
to the point where she could if she hadn't had friends to help her along
the way. Everyone needs a leg up sometimes—boy or girl. Heroism comes
in all sorts of forms. It’s not just physical strength. The shyest,
quietest character might be the bravest one. Characters who some might
see as weak could be the strongest.

I want stories that tell my son he can be the hero. But I also want the same for my daughter. I want stories that can tell both of them that it’s okay to rely on other people, male or female, and that they don’t always have to be the hero, but they also can be. They need strong characters of both genders in the things the read, the stuff they watch, what they listen to.

And when I’m watching something and it starts out with a strong
female character who dissolves into an object of conquest, it frustrates
me and makes me want to go sit down and write a book about a strong
female character for my daughter. (Then I remind myself I’m already
writing a series about a strong female character—but darn it, I want to
write a brand new one. A book, not a series. Why can’t more of my books
come in one-shots?)

I say again: We need strong characters of both genders. But please, fellow writers, please—do
not taunt me with an awesome, strong, female character and then make
her an almost completely helpless object. Don’t. Do. It. I wouldn't want
to see that happen to a male character either. Keep your characters
true to themselves. Characters are supposed to grow, and yes, characters
change when they go on journeys, sometimes for the worse, but it should
make sense.

2 comments:

Great post, Laura. One of my favorite gothic romance writers when I was a young adult ended up being a man. He'd been asked to branch off and write under the pseudonym because he wrote strong female characters.

Thank you, Laura, for putting into words what I have often felt about many female characters in many books and movies. We need strong heroes, guys and girls, men and women. I loved your examples from Tangled and Frozen - they saved each other, and it was great! I've gotten in trouble for having "too strong" of a female character, and maybe she is, but I think we need strong heroines. And we need strong heroes.